Hello, I am Takayuki Umakoshi, the president of Osaka University OSA/SPIE student chapter. Last year, our chapter and Photonics Center organized the student conference “Asia Student Photonics Conference 2013” to build student networks among Asian countries. This year, we had a theme “Expand the network from Asia to the world”.

After due deliberation, our chapter decided to hold the IONS in Hokkaido University because it is actively taking place worldwide, and IONS has been never held in Japan!  Also, the international conference “JSAP-OSA joint symposia” was held right after this student conference in Hokkaido University. So, we thought that it could bring more students who were planning to attend the symposia to the IONS. Moreover, because we could collocate JSAP Student Meeting and Asia Core Student Meeting, we could invite more students in wide range network. We have no doubt that these factors led to successful result to make this conference attractive for many students from all over the world, and also to achieve our goal. We are very pleased to host IONS, and to have this opportunity. Besides, we also organized Asia Core Student Meeting 1^st round at Photonics Center in Osaka before the Hokkaido meeting. The past two years, we have made strong network through the Asia Core student seminars in Osaka. The 1^st round gave us the wonderful opportunity to reinforce the student network with our neighbor countries in Asia too.

              It was a four-day conference in total, which is the longest event we have ever held, and 63 students attended from 11 countries worldwide. More than two-third of them were foreign students, and we got attendees even from the outside of Asia such as the U.S., the U.K., Spain, Morocco and Armenia, which made this conference more international. Furthermore, we prepared the special conference program which attendees were able to easily build networks through. We are very sure that we built the huge student network spreading all over the world.

              I believe that this great success could not happen without the strong network among our chapter members. Most of all things have been done by students such as preparation for conference room, invitation of speakers and funding. Even though chapter members were very busy with their own research, we have cooperated with each other for the success of this conference. We could make this great conference successful thanks to the strong network among chapter friends who have spent hard but fun research life together. Through organizing this conference, I could have learned the power of the network more than I expected.

              I wish the power of the network built in the IONS among students will contributes to developments on science and society in the near future.

大阪大学OSA/SPIE学生チャプター代表の馬越です。昨年、アジア圏の学生間ネットワーク構築を目指しAsia Student Photonics Conference 2013を学生チャプターとフォトニクスセンターで開催しました。そして今年、我がチャプターは「ネットワークをアジアから世界へ」という目標を掲げました。

　世界中から学生に来てもらうためにはどうしたらと考え、今回IONSという世界的に活動している学生会議（今回が日本初！）に学生チャプターはチャレンジしました。国際会議JSAP-OSA joint symposiaに付随する形で北海道大学にて開催したのも、世界中から参加者を呼び込むためです。さらに、JSAP Student Meeting（応用物理学会学生チャプター主催）とAsia Core Student Meeting（大阪大学学生チャプター・フォトニクスセンター主催）を同時開催することによって、学生コミュニティの垣根を越えた大規模なネットワークの構築を目指しました。もちろん過去2年アジアコアセミナーを開催して築いてきた近隣国であるアジアの学生間の関係を深めるのも大事です。上記会議の前にはフォトニクスセンターにてAsia Core Student Meeting 1^st roundも開催しました。

　合計すると4日間にも及ぶこれまでにない規模の学生会議になり、世界11カ国から63名もの学生が参加しました。その内2/3以上が外国人学生で、アジア圏外からもアメリカ、イギリス、スペイン、モロッコ、アルメニアと世界中からご参加頂き、国際色豊かな会議になりました。プログラムにも参加者がネットワーク活動を行いやすいよう工夫を凝らし、世界に広がった巨大な学生ネットワークを構築することができたと自負しています。

　そして、ネットワーク構築を目的とした本会議を成功させることができたのは、チャプターメンバーの間にあった強いネットワークのおかげだと思います。会場設営・講演者の招待・資金調達などほぼ全てを学生主体で準備してきました。多くのチャプターメンバーが研究の合間を縫って協力してくれたからこそ、成功させることが出来ました。寄せ集めのチームではなく、研究の苦楽を共にしてきたチャプターの仲間だからそこできた今回の会議だと思います。今回の会議は、そんなネットワークの力強さも教えてくれました。